


"Costume"

by TheUnforgiven



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 17:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2477222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUnforgiven/pseuds/TheUnforgiven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armand reminisces about the past after curiosity carries him into a costume shop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Costume"

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a VC fanfic? Honestly this is not a fandom I ever thought I’d write for, especially since it’s been awhile since I finished reading the series. But, I’m hyped for the new book this month, and meant to reread The Vampire Lestat and accidentally started rereading The Vampire Armand instead—I just really miss Armand for some reason. This idea came to me because of that. I don’t know anyone active in this fandom, but I hope somebody enjoys it.

            A costume shop. Armand thought perhaps that it was Lestat’s theatrics rubbing off on him, but he had the strangest desire to go inside. Knowing that he did not have much of a plan for the events of the evening, he decided to indulge his curiosity, and ducked into the small shop.

            A bell above the door twinkled as he stepped inside, echoing lightly through the cramped space. Starting from just inside the door, there were racks upon racks of costumes lining every inch of wall space, top and bottom. Armand reached out a hand to touch one near him, the soft chiffon of a princess dress giving gently beneath his fingers.

            “Welcome!” A voice echoed from a small door behind the desk in front of him. A thin, pale woman appeared out of it a moment later, her thoughts leaking excitement into the air. “Is there anything I can help you find, sir?” Armand laughed privately to himself at the ‘sir,’ but shook his head slowly.

            “I just wanted to look.”

            “Curious, eh? Well, feel free to have a look around at anything that interests you! The costumes in this room are all more modern styles, the room to your right has all of the more classical, renaissance style ones. The room to your left also has costumes modeled after movies and TV shows and the like, if that strikes your fancy. Let me know if you have any questions or if you want to try anything on!” She smiled happily at him before disappearing into the back room she had come out of.

            Armand thought to himself that perhaps this woman was a little bit naive, leaving a stranger—a seemingly young and devilish stranger, no less—practically alone in her shop. He decided ultimately it didn’t really matter; he had more money than he knew what to do with and no desire or intent to steal anything today.

            He thumbed through the racks in this room in a relaxed manner—he could look at every costume in the place in a matter of mere seconds, he was sure, but he felt no need to rush. It was nice to take things slow, enjoy them like his sensualist friend would often encourage him to do. He quickly decided he had seen everything of note in this room, and stepped through the narrow door to his right. ‘Renaissance costumes,’ the woman had said. The idea drew Armand into the room, wondering what exactly he might find.

            As he suspected, most of the costumes were the type that you would see in movies—not entirely inaccurate, but merely depictions of the fashions he had seen with his own eyes in those days. The fabrics were machine made, machine sewn; they simply lacked the human touch they once had. They were beautiful, yes, but not quite the same.

            As Armand pondered this thought, his eyes alighted on a midnight blue doublet—the recognition that assaulted his mind the moment he saw it was almost painful. As he gently touched the thread designs woven into it, the strange desire that had coaxed him into the shop reappeared, and he took it and its matching pieces from the rack almost without thinking and returned to the main room.

            “I want to try this on,” he stated, loudly enough that the woman behind the door would hear. She appeared quickly, directing him to the dressing room connected to the room he was just in.

            He slipped out of his jacket and his long shirt and his fitted jeans. He slid on the tights—they were thicker than the ones he wore long ago, more suited to the modesty of the modern day. The tunic followed, and finally the doublet, his thin fingers buttoning it up with a practiced ease they still remembered after all these years. He slipped his feet into a pair of gold slippers he had taken from a rack they’d passed on the way to this room, and set a soft hat upon his head.

            At long last, as if in a trance, he moved from the room to return to the long mirror that stood among the old style costumes. His artificial breathing stopped as he gazed into it, gazed at these clothes which were a startling likeness to those he had worn for his master hundreds of years ago.

            Armand knew, perhaps better than most, that dwelling on the past was entirely useless, and in fact more often than not harmful when those memories of long dead days surrounded you and made you yearn for things that you could never have again. Even more dangerous still for those like himself, who outlived all the other creatures of the Earth. He knew this, and yet, for just a moment he allowed himself to slip back there, back to the days in Venice where these decadent clothes were common, where at the tender age of seventeen, he had lost his life and been given a new one.

            He watched the painted walls of the Palazzo rise around him, the ancient smell of oil paints and fine candles engulfing him as he recalled the memory of being every bit the age he looked, of waiting not so patiently for his master to return home and comfort him. Gazing in the mirror but not seeing his reflection, he drifted in the past, wanting for that short time to feel like a human child again, like a boy in his youth who was dependant on the affections of the one he loved.

            “What are you thinking of, my child?” Excitement pounded in Armand’s chest, though the heart that should have been thudding along with it had long since stopped beating. He turned slowly from the mirror, and there his master stood, once again draped in the classical red velvet, with his golden hair laid delicately over his shoulders.

            “Master, you’ve returned home at last,” Armand whispered, the familiar human ache of loneliness clawing at his chest. His master, for his turn, looked rather jolted, though his eyes betrayed a familiar kindness. Those eyes said he understood, though his expression remained carefully neutral.

            “Armand, this is unlike you. To lose yourself in the past so completely...” He trailed off, gazing at his fledgling with a small smile on his face now. The sound of his name from those lips finally brought him back to the present, the walls of the Palazzo melting away as his eyes began to take in the small costume shop once more. He thought Marius would melt away as well, but he did not; the splendid velvet and the long hair evaporated from him, but still he stood there, dressed in his modern clothes with his cropped hair, gazing steadily back.

            “Master...” Armand said slowly, looking around the room once more. “Why are you here?” The hardness of his voice was back once more, guarded.

            “I was not far off, something called me here,” he said simply. “I’m glad I came to see.” Armand glanced down at his clothes, the classical Italian doublet and tights and gold slippers, a small frown gracing his youthful features. “Do you miss it?” The boy did not have to ask what he meant.

            “I do.” He looked up. “But I cannot go back, and I know this.”

            “We could go back. We could be together once more, as we were in those days.” Armand shook his head slowly.

            “It is best not to dwell. Those days are gone, we cannot regain them, even if we were to live together again as we once did.” Marius frowned at this, but said nothing.

            “Well, if nothing else, I am glad I got to see you this way again. It is a sight I thought I had lost forever.” It was Armand’s turn to remain silent. “I will go now, and leave you be. Until we meet again.” He lifted his hand to say goodbye, and departed from the room and out the front door of the small shop. Armand watched him go from the window, pulling gently at the threads on his sleeve.

            “Did you want to try something else on, sir? Or did you want to buy that one maybe?” The shop owner said as she reentered the room. She stopped dead at the sight of him. “...if I may say so, it looks beautiful on you. You look like you’ve just stepped out of the renaissance...” She added dreamily. Her thoughts floated into Armand’s mind—she wondered about the conversation she had overheard, wondered if he and Marius were exes, wondered why Armand called him ‘master.’ He blocked them out as he turned from the window to look at her.

            “Yes,” he said slowly. “I would like to take it home with me.”


End file.
